


Ace of Clubs

by wecara



Series: Ace Knights of the Round Table [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Asexuality, Coming Out, Family Fluff, Gen, Not Beta Read, but like its short so whatever, same thing with the rest of the aces
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-07-12 12:36:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15995351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wecara/pseuds/wecara
Summary: Charlie just thinks dragons are really cool.Otherwise known as trefoils, clubs represent many things: fall, winter, night, darkness, males, fire, energy, will, wealth, work, luck, and happiness.AKA The first work in a series surrounding asexual representation. Happy Birthday Emma!





	Ace of Clubs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Em_Bart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Em_Bart/gifts).



> Charlie just thinks dragons are really cool.

Molly Weasley was not pleased. No, not pleased at  _ all.  _ In fact, she was absolutely  _ livid  _ when her second oldest son came stumbling through the Burrow’s door one summer night, drunk out of his mind and clinging to a scantily clad, large bosomed blonde and babbling incomprehensibly while the witch giggled, sounding like a bat was fighting a mouse. 

“Oh, hi Mum,” he slurred, finally noticing the red-faced woman standing across the room from him. The pair had obviously attempted at a silent entry, but Charlie’s heavy footfalls and the girl’s high pitched squeals had set off Molly’s internal alarm clock  _ immediately.  _ Charlie smiled crookedly and gestured towards the witch’s breasts, practically drooling as he gushed, “look at  _ these, _ ” gazing doe-eyed at the girl’s skimpy bikini top. Now, if Molly wasn’t irate before, she certainly was now. 

“Charles Virgil Weasley!” she cried shrilly, and Charlie’s eyes narrowed in confusion. The boy had  _ some nerve  _ pretending like he didn’t understand the reason for his mother’s wrath. “I will  _ not  _ have you bumbling around  _ intoxicated  _ in my house at Merlin-knows-what hour, and I  _ certainly  _ will not tolerate you objectifying this woman like a perverted old man!” she shrieked, and Charlie turned his gaze away from the witch’s breasts to blink sleepily at Molly, her screams flying way over his drunken head.

“Objectifickyfying?” he stuttered, and the witch pitched into a fit of squeaky giggles. Molly could practically feel the steam start to hiss from her ears and she bunched her fists into her nightgown.

“Honestly! I thought I raised you better than this!” she cried, marching over to the closet by the door to shove on a heavy coat and a pair of shoes as she continued to rant about how utterly disgusted she was by his behavior and how Charlie should be absolutely ashamed of himself. 

“Muuum, what’re you  _ talking  _ about?” Charlie groaned, every vowel sounding drawn out in his inebriation. “All I wanna do is takeoff ‘er top,” his fingers drifted to the ties at the back of the girl’s bikini bra, and Molly started to see red. 

“ _ CHARLES! _ ” she boomed, sending a shock at his fingers from her wand hard enough to make him yelp and stumble backwards. The witch found this to be the funniest thing on earth, as she dissolved into another fit of giggles that were starting to give Molly a headache. The stout woman surged forward, pinching her second eldest by the ear and dragging him up the stairs and into his bedroom. She shoved him inside, the boy whining incomprehensibly as he tumbled onto the uneven floorboards. Molly simply glared at him, appalled. She wanted to say more, to scream and shout until her throat was blue, but she had a drunken banshee of a witch in her living room that needed to be attended to first. 

She closed his door with such force that the room rattled, and Charlie was left lying on the ground, whining about his aching ear. 

~

The next morning, Charlie awoke with a pounding headache and the sound of shouting coming from downstairs. His mouth tasted like shit, and he felt dirty all over. He groaned as every inch of his body began to scream as he tried to sit up. Nausea attacked his stomach with brutal force, and he didn’t think the dreadful feeling could get worse. 

Of course, coming downstairs was proof that it could and it did. Once he stepped out of bed, muscle memory and autopilot took him down the rickety stairs and straight into the lanky form of his father, and thus began Probably Charlie’s Worst Ever Day.

The room had gone suspiciously quiet. 

“G’morning,” Charlie grumbled, wiping his eyes against the harsh morning light that seemed to reflect off of every surface in the damn kitchen. He needed about a billion doses of Pepperup, and he needed it now. 

“Charles,” Arthur said in a quiet voice that immediately made the boy’s blood run cold. His father had only used that tone a handful of times, and each had been due to acts of immense fuck-upery on one of the Weasley siblings’ parts. He swallowed and lifted his gaze from his hands to the piercing one of his father’s disappointment. “I hope you have a good explanation for last night.”

Oh, Merlin, what did he  _ do?  _ He remembered bits and pieces, Jaq and Mitchell had invited him to grab a couple drinks, he’s pretty sure there had been a lot of red and purple lights, and perhaps an Antipodean Opaleye? It was all just increasing his headache to try and remember. 

“I—uh,” he stammered, “sorry?”

At this, the entire scene went up in flames. His mother began to shout, his father’s words drowned out in the noise—although the greatly disappointed tone was not lost amongst the chaos—Fred and George were firing off questions, switching between the two of them mid-sentence as if they were reading each other’s minds, Percy had his nose in the air and was yelling something about honor and dignity and respect, and Ron and Ginny were laughing as if they would never stop. Charlie groaned and buried his face in his hands, trying to make himself smaller in order to lessen the noise. 

“And  _ sorry  _ is all you have to say?!” the tail end of Molly’s rant rose above the rest of the chatter, and after that it all seemed to melt away. Once again, the Weasley family was silent only to hear in what pathetic way Charlie would try to defend himself before they broke into another stream of endless noise. Charlie sighed.

“Yeah, Mum, I really don’t remember what—”

“You don’t  _ remember?! _ ” Fred and George cried simultaneously. The table was back in its uproar. 

“You brought a sodding swimsuit model home with you, blackout drunk, in the middle of the night!” Ron’s voice caught Charlie’s attention.

“I did  _ what?! _ ” Charlie exclaimed, the breath seeming to rip away from his chest like a Hebridean Black out of hell. 

“Yeah, kept on mumbling about her tits while Mum—”

“ _ RONALD! _ ”

“Ow, ow, Mum! Sorry!”

Charlie slumped back onto the stairs. He did  _ not  _ remember  _ that.  _ “Are you quite sure?” he asked meekly, looking up at his enraged mother through his lashes, his chin touching his chest in embarrassment. He wracked his brain for any sign of a female counterpart during that night, but the only thing that stuck out in his mind was the dragons he’d been studying that afternoon. 

“Yes, I’m quite sure. Goodness, you nearly killed me when you started undressing her in the middle of the living room like some sort of—”

“ _ Undressing her?! _ ” Charlie shrieked, utterly horrified. His siblings began snickering as Fred and George mimed an inappropriate reenactment of the scene—even little Ginny snorted into her cup of orange juice as George pretended to swoon. “Where is she now?” Charlie cried, looking around the room anxiously as if the witch were hiding on one of the dining room chairs all along.

“Stop your fretting, I apparated her to a portkey station and sent her to a hotel—you’re paying for her stay, by the way. Nothing happened, but it could have if I didn’t hear the two of you clomping around downstairs like a pair of bloody hippogriffs!” Molly harrumphed. Charlie groaned long and loud, burying his aching head into his hands and rubbing at his flushed cheeks, humiliation turning them a brilliant scarlet. 

“And in the middle of the living room, too!” Percy announced shrilly. “Ginny was the first one awake, what if she had walked in on the two of you—on you— _ fornicating _ —” Percy shut himself up with a shudder, choosing instead to glare silently at Charlie. As if he wasn’t already completely mortified with himself. 

“Honestly, I don’t remember any of that,” he said mournfully. 

“Well what  _ do  _ you remember?” Ron asked a bit too eagerly, earning him a swat upside the head. Charlie shrugged slowly, rubbing his temples.

“Not a lot, I remember going out for drinks with my coworkers, and lots of colored lights, but mostly all I can recall is the dragon species we were studying right before,” he admitted, the strain of trying to remember much more just increasing the piercing pain in his head.

“Cool! Was it a Hungarian Horntail again?” Ginny asked excitedly, and Charlie grinned.

“Yeah! We’ve got an egg that I think is almost ready to hatch and it’s—” 

“Hold on you two,” Arthur interrupted, “we still aren’t finished discussing your behavior last night.” Charlie wilted, and Ginny stuck her lip out in a pout. She’d been enamoured by the photos Charlie had brought back from his internship a couple months ago, and was always eager to hear more about them. She didn’t care much for the scientific rambling Charlie tended to fall into when talking about them, but was elated by the idea of riding one someday. She’d always ask him how high up they could fly and if  _ he’d _ ever ridden a dragon before. 

“I wanted to hear more about the Horntails,” Ginny complained.

Wait, Horntails?

Yes, that’s right, they’d been studying Hungarian Horntails. So why was he thinking of Antipodean Opaleyes? They hadn’t researched those in months! Still, he could very distinctly remember the gorgeous rainbow shimmer of their scales. It was one of the most prominent memories from last night. 

“Mum? What color was the witch’s outfit?” He asked, holding his breath. If he was right…

“Oh, I don’t remember. Sort of pearly, I guess? What does that have to do with—”

“Oh my God,” Charlie breathed, “Bloody hell, that’s it! That’s it Mum!” he cried, louder this time. He rose from his slump on the stairs too quickly, causing his stomach to turn, but he ignored it as he grinned blindingly at his other family members. 

“What are you getting all hopped up for?” Percy sneered. Charlie was too relieved to care.

“Mum, I wasn’t interested in  _ her,  _ I was interested in her  _ top, _ ” he explained, grinning ear to ear. Molly scowled.

“Yes, I’m well aware,” she growled, but Charlie shook his head.

“No, not—not like  _ that,  _ I don’t even  _ like  _ girls in that way. I mean I was interested in the fabric. It was made of Antipodean Opaleye hide, which has been  _ coveted  _ by clothing manufacturers for centuries, it’s extremely rare and very beautiful. I probably saw her wearing it and immediately wanted to take it off and examine it. I wasn’t in my right mind, so I didn’t have my manners about me—”

Charlie’s explanation is cut off by huge, thunderous laughter coming from Fred, George, Ron, and Ginny at the table. The four of them look quite like they’re about to keel over from the sheer force of their giggles, tears streaming from the corners of Ron’s eyes and orange juice spilling from Fred’s nose. 

“You—you took—you took a girl home, but you only wanted—” George choked out between giggles, “You only wanted to look at her  _ shirt? _ ” Charlie stiffened awkwardly.

“Yeeeaaahhh,” he said with a wince. “I mean, it’s better than, uh, the other thing, right?”

“Damn right it is,” Fred wheezed. “I can’t imagine a funnier outcome!”

“Regardless of  _ why,  _ you still came home  _ far  _ too late at night, completely drunk out of your mind, with a strange girl who would have ended up topless one way or another in our house. Don’t think you’ve evaded punishment, boy,” Molly warned, but Charlie just shrugged stiffly. He didn’t mind as much now, knowing that he hadn’t had any of the intentions his family had been describing. If he had, he would’ve had to re-evaluate his entire character. 

“What was it you said about not liking girls ‘in that way?’” Percy asked quietly, and the laughter in the room suddenly melted away like ice on hot asphalt. All eyes were trained on Charlie, stuck on him like thorns in a sweater. He stood still as a statue while the room held a collective breath.

“Charlie?” Molly prompted gently, breaking the silence when the boy did not answer. At length, he sighed, his shoulders drooping and his eyes closing defeatedly. 

“I didn’t want to tell you like this,” he admitted, and Ginny sucked in a sharp gasp. “But I guess—it’s been—it’s already—”

“Take your time,” Arthur prompted, and Charlie shot his father a grateful crooked grin. Then he took another deep breath, composing his thoughts. 

“I’m asexual,” he stated simply, looking up so his gaze met his mother’s. Her face was no longer the furious knot it had been before, but donned a kind, understanding smile. She said nothing, and neither did the rest of the family for a very long time. Charlie began to shift anxiously from foot to foot, wondering if he should explain it. He’s pretty sure his parents, Percy, and possibly Fred and George understood what the term meant, but Ron and Ginny were probably confused.

“I knew it,” his sister hissed suddenly, shattering the tension that had been filling the air like a fog. “I  _ knew  _ it!” she squealed, louder this time. Then she dropped down from her dining room chair, crawling underneath the table to pop out on the other side and stalk determinedly towards Charlie. Her face didn’t look  _ angry,  _ but it wasn’t gushing with pride either. Charlie began to worry for the health of his shins, which, after even one good kick from Ginny, could be completely put out of commission for days. 

“You filthy liar!” she accused, pointing a finger up at Charlie’s nose. He blinked, confused and a little hurt. “When I asked you if you liked anyone at school you just said there was this girl named Wendy who you thought was pretty, and I believed you until you were telling me about that injured Welsh Green that you found and nursed back to health, and  _ her  _ name was Wendy too! And I thought it was probably just a coincidence, but now I know for  _ sure  _ that you were just talking about the stupid dragon!” Ginny complained, stomping intermittently to emphasize her points. Fortunately, she looked more annoyed than angry, and Charlie couldn’t help but laugh.

“Sorry Gin, yeah, you’re right,” he admitted sheepishly. His little sister scowled and gave him a halfhearted kick on his left shin, but it was more of a tap. Then she looked up, a splitting grin making her cheeks rosy and her eyes sparkle. 

“Oh, well. I’m proud of you, bro,” she said, then pitched herself forward, leaning her entire weight into a hug around his torso. Charlie felt his eyes start to heat up with tears, and he leaned forward to reciprocate the embrace. 

“Thanks,” he said, his throat feeling tight. 

“Oh, come here!” Molly said, sniffing and already making her way over to the two of them with her own arms outstretched. Soon after, Arthur and then Ron and George and Fred and even Percy joined in on the hug, laughing and congratulating Charlie for figuring that out about himself. Surrounded by the warmth and love of his family, Charlie finally allowed the tears to fall. His smile was so large his cheeks started to ache with the strain of holding it up. 

“Thank you so much, guys,” he said again around a happy little sob. “I love you.”

“Oh, don’t cry, you’ll make  _ me  _ cry!” Arthur complained, already wiping his eyes with his sleeve. Charlie laughed as Ginny buried her face deeper into his chest and his family tightened their hold on him. 

“This adds a whole new meaning to your strange affinity for dragons,” George muttered, disturbed.

“Shut up,” Charlie snapped, but there was little fire behind it. “They’re super cool and you know it. I mean, have you  _ seen  _ a Romanian Longhorn? Because I have and the pictures do  _ not  _ do them justice.”

Ron groaned. “Look what you’ve done, George. Now he’s never gonna shut up.”

“I’m Fred,” George said, sounding a little hurt.

“Shit—sorry, Fred—”

“I’m just kidding, I’m George,” the twin snickered, and high-fived his counterpart. Ron groaned again, muttering something about hijacking their shampoo with ink.

Suddenly, something cool and rubbery pressed against Charlie’s chest. He looked down and saw Molly pressing a pair of dirty gardening boots against him. Ginny wrinkled her nose and pulled away from Charlie before bits of caked mud could fall onto her head, causing the rest of the group to fall away as well. 

“Mum, what’s…?” he asked, taking the boots from her warily. 

“Just because you were the first of my lot to come out to me doesn't mean you’re off the hook,” she said sternly, but the glint of happiness in her kind eyes was not forgotten as Charlie sighed and nodded. “Now go de-gnome the garden.”

“Yes, Mum,” he replied with a defeated groan. Then he slid the shoes on over his socks, not bothering to change out of his pajamas, and walked to the squeaky garden door. His family behind him returned to business as usual, the rustle and bustle of breakfast resuming as if nothing had happened in the first place. They weren’t ashamed of him, and they weren’t weirded out. They understood and still loved him unconditionally.

So even as Charlie got dirt smudged across his face, knees, and hands twirling the ugly gnomes until both he and the creatures were dizzy, and even as the summer sun began to beat down with muggy mercilessness, Charlie was happy. 

Charlie was very, very happy. 

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this fic (and, by extension, this series) as a birthday present for one of my best friends, Emma! I hope you like it, and I hope I wasn't too obvious in asking you what characters you might want to see in a more asexual light. Happy 17th, boo!


End file.
